Egypt Cuts Receivables Bill Amid Arbitration Threat

As Egypt’s finances have improved, state firm EGPC has cut the sums it owes foreign operators to a 10-year low. But at least one firm remains unhappy.

Egypt cut the sums it owes oil firms active in the country to $1.2bn by mid-2018, down 80% on the mid-2013 peak of $6bn. Success has been such that most of the country’s large operators, the likes of BP, Eni and Shell, have stopped reporting figures. But for smaller firms for whom receivables remain material to their finances, the end-2018 figures were mixed.

Of firms reporting end-2018 receivables, the biggest was from Edison, the Italian ‘for-sale’ (MEES, 11 January) subsidiary of France’s EdF. Edison, whose key asset is the 270mn cfd Abu Qir shallow-water gas field off Alexandria, saw its receivables rise to $232mn at end-2018 from $221mn a year earlier. Edison also operates the Northeast Ha’py and North Thekah deepwater Mediterranean blocks where the firm is planning on drilling two wells later this year and where Israeli firm Ratio Oil is in talks to take a stake (MEES, 22 March). (CONTINUED - 764 WORDS)